[Zetack]

Well, to start, if your description of your post is accurate you aren't addicted in the way that your family is talking about. The common sense of addiction that they are using has to include a component of a very large negative consequense to the addiction.

I guarantee you I spend more time at work and thinking about work than you do playing poker and thinking about poker. Sometimes it interferes with my family activities, its been known to intrude on weekends and in the evenings I sometimes put my daughter to bed and then hit the 'puter, foregoing my evening time with my fiance to handle whatever crisis has hit the blackberry that night.

Oddly enough, nobody has ever said that I'm addicted to my job.

I wouldn't push the issue. If they talk to you about it, or if it comes up in conversation, sure, lay it all out calmly and logically. I like to end up giving them the bottom line which is: I will never, ever, spend any money out of my pocket on poker. [This actually annoys my fiance, btw, since she would like me to be more liberal in tapping my poker winnings for other things].

--Zetack